The framework I've been sitting on for a year
A new way of thinking about sales, finally out of my head and into your inbox.
Last year, when I was eight and a half months pregnant, I built a 12-module sales course.
I started recording it even though I couldn’t breathe halfway through any sentence. I essentially went into labor while recording module four. Four months postpartum, I came back to those videos, watched ten minutes of myself, and scrapped the entire thing.
And instead, I hosted a workshop last week for The Jefa in Training Circle. It was important for me to debut this framework in that space because as one of our community members said last night “we are not taught how to sell, only to consume”. And that hit. And consumer habits run deep, which is why I also am developing a talk on Latine consumer trust for any brand that wants to tap into our community - the ethical and culturally relevant way.
But I digress.
I wanted to find a way to teach sales differently because I have never felt that the “traditional” coach/consultant sales tactics were for me. The constant emails from a coach you only hear from when they want to launch a new program. The 45-min fluff webinar with almost as much of the same time pitching to you to spend thousands of dollars and take a second mortgage on your house.
I sat with this for a year.
And what I kept coming back to is this: most sales advice fails people not because the advice is wrong, but because it skips the part that actually matters.
It skips the experience.
Sales is an experience, not a transaction.
I will die on this hill.
The sales call isn’t where sales happens. By the time someone is on a call with you, the sale has already been decided — or it hasn’t — by everything that came before. Their first impression of your Instagram. The way your newsletter made them feel. Whether the language on your services page made them think yes, that’s me in three seconds, or whether they bounced because they couldn’t tell who it was for.
The same feeling you want people to have when they’re working with you is the same feeling they should have at that very first interaction.
That realization is what TEK came from. Trust. Engage. Keep. Three stages, and a sales process that finally felt like mine. I hope it feels like yours too.
Trust
The buyer recognizes themselves in your offer in three seconds. If they can’t tell who it’s for, what transformation it delivers, and where it fits in their life — they’re not going to trust it. You have to create a safe space for them. They have to know their time, energy and funds are going to something that will add value to their life, not take away from it.
Most people think this is a content problem. I’m not posting enough. I’m not visible enough. I need to be on more platforms.
It’s almost never a content problem. It’s a clarity problem. And no amount of content fixes a clarity problem. It just buries it deeper.
Engage
Your Instagram following is not the same as your buyer personas. The people who like your posts are not always the people who will hire you, and that’s fine — but you need somewhere else for the people who will hire you to find you.
Build an owned audience. A newsletter. A membership. A recurring event series. Somewhere you have direct access to people without an algorithm in the way.
Rented land introduces. Owned land converts.
Keep
Once a client, always a client. Past clients are gold mines for referrals and re-engagement. Communities show up. Followings scroll past.
Build recurring formats — office hours, quarterly check-ins, referral systems — that give people a reason to come back. Not because you’re chasing them. Because you’ve made it easy for them to keep choosing you.
And the part most people miss: not yet doesn’t mean no. A lot of sales come from long leads — people who’ve been quietly reading your newsletter for two years and finally make the move because you stayed in their inbox.
If you delete everyone who’s said “not yet,” you’d have nobody.
Three questions to sit with this week
Can your buyer recognize themselves in your offer in three seconds?
If your most-used social platform disappeared tomorrow, would you still have direct contact with your people?
When somebody works with you once, do they have a clear path to work with you again — directly or through referrals?
If any of those is a no, that’s where the work is. Not in more content. Not in a new platform. In the part you’ve been avoiding because it requires you to get specific.
Want the full workshop?
Last week I taught all of this in a live workshop, and the clip above is just one piece of it.
The full recording, slide deck, and TEK Self-Assessment worksheet are unlocked for paid Reframe Room subscribers below. If you’ve been thinking about upgrading, this is the moment — the recording goes deep into the parts I couldn’t fit in this post, including additional case studies and the worksheet exercises that make the framework actually stick.
Going deeper: Sales Summer Camp
For those of you ready to spend four weeks actually applying TEK to your business — not just thinking about it — I’m running Sales Summer Camp this June.
Four Thursdays starting June 15, 4:00–5:30pm PT. Live sessions, workbook, WhatsApp access, group office hours, and a 1:1 voice note check-in with me during the sprint.
What you’ll walk away with: A sales process that feels like you. An offer your buyer recognizes themselves in within three seconds. An audience strategy that doesn’t depend on going viral. The confidence to talk about pricing without flinching. And a plan for keeping past clients in your orbit so they keep referring, keep buying, keep showing up.
Founding rate (first 5 applications): $397 public, $297 for Reframe Room subscribers. Standard rate kicks in May 16: $497 / $397.
Application-only. No direct checkout.
Until next time,
xx, Ashley
P.S. — An open invitation:
If you came to The Reframe through my work in the Latina entrepreneurship space, you might want to know that the Jefa in Training Circle has its own newsletter now — it’s called Entre Nosotras and it lives on Kit. Latina-only entrepreneurship resources, events, and insights specifically for the comunidad.